You may find the undead scary, but the way humanity deals with the dead is the real horror, environmentally speaking. Between the wood used for caskets (30 million—sometimes rare wood—board feet, according to National Geographic), the tons of steel and concrete for burial vaults, the hundreds of thousands of gallons of embalming fluid, and the noxious substances emitted in the “approved” cremation process, our dead are becoming an absolute eco-nightmare.

So now, the dead need to go green as well, and I don’t mean just old an moldy. If you want to know how, check into the Green Burial Council. You can be buried in biodegradable wicker or cardboard or wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as sustainably harvested. Or how about having your remains tucked into a 100 percent natural, PH-balanced “reef ball” and plunked down on the ocean floor to be a home to generations of little fishes and sea snails?

Skip the embalming fluid, let them pack you in dry ice so that by the time they plant you in a lovely biodegradable way, you’ve stayed “healthy” enough to give something good and tasty back to the planet that served you so well.

Now, that’s what I call recycling.

—Erin Orison, DEAD LOVE/The Daily Slice

Image by Bart Frescura, courtesy of Bart Frescura

boldlow

Hi Erin, love the new Slice e-mailing. Thanks for including me on your list.